'Smores Cupcakes

The actual cake recipe is much like the one I had for my red velvet,
just slightly modified.

Cupcakes:
1 C Almond Milk
1 tsp. Apple Cider Vinegar
1 C Sugar
1 1/4 C Flour
1/3 C Canola Oil
1/2-3/4 C. Cocoa Powder
1 teaspoon instant espresso (optional)
2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/4 tsp. Baking Soda
1/4 tsp. Salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place cupcake liners in your cupcake pan.
2. Combine soy milk and apple cider vinegar in a bowl and let sit for 5 minutes to thicken.
3. Combine sugar, oil, extracts and espresso in a large mixing bowl.
Once your soy milk mixture has thickened add it to you mixing bowl. Combine thoroughly.
4. Add the rest of your dry ingredients, mix until all lumps are gone.
5. Fill cupcake lines 2/3 full.
6. Cook in the over for 17-19 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the
center of a cupcake comes out clean.
7. Wait at least 30 minutes, or until completely cool to frost.

The frosting I mad was fail, despite is looking nice so I won't list the recipe.
It was marshmallow but the taste was a bit off. So use any frosting you want, this would be really good with peanut butter
frosting or you could mix chocolate chips into it and have them as muffins.

For decoration I crushed some graham crackers and melted some dark chocolate.

Armenian food: Kunefe

My friend and I had an awesome Armenian food night and this was dessert. We found a few different recipes but this was what we settled on. There are many variations:

1 package shredded phyllo dough (We just bought packaged)
2 sticks of melted clarified butter
1 15oz package of ricotta cheese
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup simple syrup for serving

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a large bowl, crumble the phyllo with your hands (or use a food proccessor) and then add melted butter and mix together. Put part of the mixture in the bottom of a pie pan.

Mix together the walnuts, sugar and cinnamon then put the mixture in a thin later it pie pan. Covered with riccota (Whatever mount you want, we didn't need a lot because it was a small pan). Then cover with the rest of the phyllo mixture.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the top is brown and crispy. Let cool for ten minutes the spoon the simple syrup onto the top of the kunefe and sprinkle with leftover walnut mixture (if you have any) and let cool for an additional 20 minutes before serving (we put ours in the fridge, it came out perfect).

Almost Vegan Mint Chocolate Cookies

So these are almost vegan but I use honey, so technically they're vegetarian.

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 C. Vegetable or Canola oil
1/2 cup raw sugar**
1/2 - 3/4 cup honey (replace with 1/2 C maple syrup + 1/4 C agave to make vegan)
1 TBS almond milk (or soy, coconut, ect)
1 TSP vanilla exctract
1/2-3/4 C chopped fresh mint (Depending on how strong you want it)

Dry Ingredients:
2 C whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1/4 TSP salt
1 TSP baking soda
1 TSP baking powder

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°

1. Whisk together the wet ingredients in a medium sized bowl
2. Sift the dry ingredients into a separate bowl.
3. Add the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined.
4. Drop by tablespoon (or roll into balls) onto a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

You'll notice some of the cookies have a topping. I made an icing/ganache by combining 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 3 TBS honey (or agave) and2 tablespoons melted coconut oil and spooned it on top then refrigerated them for 10 minutes.

**I used a vanilla sugar. When I scrap my vanilla beans I put the extra in a jar with sugar and shake it once or twice a day.

Vegetable Noodle Soup (Gf & Vegan)

After a few requests for a recipe I decided to attempt, since all I did was throw things together.

First off the stock. I save bits of veggies I don't use, leftovers from fresh herbs, ect and freeze them. Today I finally threw them in a pot with water and simmered them for about an hour with some celery, chopped carrots, white onion, whole peppercorns, tomato, and some olive oil. You could throw in anything you want to flavor it.

After about an hour I turned it off and let it sit (covered) for about 45 minutes (which was because I had to run to the store). You could let yours sit longer or strain it right away. Then I added the stock back to the pot.

Ingredients for soup:
1-2 green bell peppers, chopped
1-2  red bell peppers, chopped
4-6 (Medium or large) carrots, peeled and chopped
3 large russet potatoes (or 4-5 red potatoes) chopped (I don't peel mine)
1 cup mushrooms, slices (I used crimini)
2 stalks
2 tablespoons finely minced garlic
1/2-1 cup chopped celery
2-4 Tomatoes, seeded and chopped (I had kumato on hand)
1 cup pearl onions
1/4 -1/4 bag gluten free pasta
1 cup chopped cabbage
Himalayan pink salt (or any salt of your choice) and pepper to taste
Fresh/dried herbs such as rosemary, parsley, sage, thyme (to your preference)
Herbes de Provence works well too

1. Add vegetables (except cabbage) and herbs to pot and simmer for an hour or until vegetables reach your desired tenderness. You can wait until later to add the tomato but I throw it in with it so it cooks down and adds a good flavor.
2. About ten minutes before the veggies are done add in your pasta and cabbage (or just add chooped cabbage on top when serving for a nice crunch).

Enjoy

Eat your heart out

I've been trying to think of something to do for Valentine's Day and red velvet came to mind. I love red velvet. I also love making cookies.
When it comes to baking rarely do I create my own recipes, though I often change them a lot, this one (well the cookie itself) came from Cake Artisan HERE.
However the icing is mine.
I don't like using typical food color (unfortunately there is gel food coloring in the cookies themselves but I wanted to play around with the icing. So I used fresh cherry juice:

I mixed this into my icing and  it turned a fun light pink.
Icing:
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1 tablespoon honey (or corn syrup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pat butter (at room temp)
Cherry juice.

Mix it together in a medium sized bowl until you reach the consistency you want, feel free to play around with the amounts.

I really wish I had a good quality camera because the icing turned out sort of pearlescent and pretty but it isn't captured here:

 (The dark spots are bits of cherry)

Raw Chocolate Pudding

This isn't your typical chocolate pudding, it's raw!

Ingredients:
2 ripe avocados
2 ripe bananas
2 tablespoons honey (agave or maple to make it vegan)
3-4 tablespoons raw/natural cocoa powder OR carob powder
Extra: I had some cherries so I squeeze the juice from some of them into it. You could also chop up cherries and add them in


Directions:
1. Halve avocados, remove pit, and scoop out flesh.
2. Combine avocado flesh, bananas, honey, cocoa powder and cherry in a food processor or blender, occasionally scraping down the sides. Blend until smooth.
3. Refrigerate and serve.


Presentation:
I had some vegan dark chocolate that I melted and dipped a cherry in, I also drizzles some on top.

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Chocolate & Carrot cookies (Vegetarian)

So I got bored and was having baking withdrawals. Also wanted to test a recipe, this was the result.

Preheat oven to 350°

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup oats
1 cup pastry flour
1/2 tsp sea salt (Used Himalayan pink salt this time because I ran out of sea salt)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon ground flax

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup honey or agave
1 tsp vanilla extract (I just scraped a vanilla bean into the mix)
2-3 tbs water

Mix in:
1 cup grated carrot

Other options:
1/2 cup raisins and/or chopped walnuts

Ganache (optional):
1/2 cup carob chips (or dark chocolate chips)
1 teaspoon coconut oil

Directions:
1. Combine the ground flax and water in a small bowl. Let sit for 5 minutes.
2. In medium sized bowl mix the dry ingredients together.
3. In separate bowl combine the wet ingredients and add the flax mixture (or make your flax mixture in this bowl then add wet ingredients)
4. Add wet to dry and then add fold in carrots and other mix ins if you choose.
5. Scoop teaspoon size cookies on a baking tray and flatten then tops (if you choose). Bake for 10 minutes then remove and place on cooling rack

To make ganache:
1. Over a double boiler or in a pan on low heat combine carob (or chocolate) chips and coconut oil. Mix until melted together and let stand for a few minutes or until slightly cool.
2. Spoon over cookies then place them in the fridge to set up. Enjoy.

Grated Carrot

Mix

Cookies with ganache